I Want You To Live For Me Lydia Promise Me
by RTVampireKilljoy
Summary: The living aren't meant to stay with the dead. They're meant to live and love. Beetlejuice must finally ask Lydia what she plans for her life and what he thinks would be best for her in the end. One Shot. First Beetlejuice Fanfic. This does take in all the different forms from movie, cartoon and musical. No one is underage.


"Hey ... Lydia?"

Her full first name. Not Lyds. Not babe. Lydia.

No Lydia and in a very serious if not somber tone to becoming from The Ghost with the Most.

Lydia turned from the movie they had been watching to give him her full attention. When he said her name like this and in such a manner it usually meant he was in some sort of trouble. One she'd have to dig him out of, at many times literally, or he had an apology to make to her for said trouble he caused.

What she didn't expect was the very somber look he was giving her as she met his stare.

"Beej? Hey, what's the matter?"

He looked away, obviously trying to gather the right words, before look her dead in the eyes.

"Lydia... I think it might ... " he sighed in frustration, "I think it might be a good idea if we hanged out less..."

She stared at her dead best friend in confusion, if not disbelief.

Beetlejuice the most clingy person she had ever met suggesting they stop hanging out?

"Am I dying?"

Beetlejuice looked up in school, "Yes, no, I mean." He groaned, "all breathers are dying Lyds. Every breath you take is a step closer to death, but that's not it..."

"Then What is it B?"

He looked away in discomfort.

"You're getting older... up there.." he motioned his thumb up. "You'll be hitting the start of your thirties soon and well... I've never seen you go out with anybody."

"Beetlejuice..."

He held up his hand to stop her, "now let me finish before I lose this serious attitude. I don't have them nearly enough when it comes to talking about us."

Lydia stayed quiet as she gave him a nod to continue.

He took a deep breath unneeded breath to steady his nerves.

"We've never really discussed us...not after you got older... you were just turned twenty one and kicking ass at that drinking gave before we both knew we thought more of each other then just friends. Now I know I said you just said it cause you were two sheets wasted in the wind, but..."

He could feel her eyes on him, watching so internally as if she was burning a hole through him by the second.

"I never asked if you remembered my response when you called me with that sappy happy puppy grin. I hadn't caught on you were drunk until after I said it, but..."

"You loved me."

Beetlejuice's eyes flickered up to meet Lydia's. Not one of anger or disgust, but a warm welcoming smile.

He blinked, a confused look plastered on his face.

"Y...yeah..."

Lydia continued to smile, though tears began to form as she gave a sad chuckle.

"I didn't regret saying I loved you first Beej...but I know how hard it is for you to share your emotions and I wanted you to feel ready to tell me again in your time."

He sighed knowing he wouldn't have said it, not again, not while she still breathed.

"Lydia... you know as well as I that we can't be more then friends... the living can not have a real life with the dead. It only ends..."

"Badly." Lydia smiled sadly taking his hand in her own, "I know."

Many a medium had met a horrible end. From witch trails. To asylums. It never ended well for the living person in the relationship and many were never themselves again in death. The mind destroyed by torture or injury in those cases. Mindless or no longer beyond simple thought. Forever roaming the place they were to haunt until their sentence ended or a case worker took pity on them. Ending the sentence early.

Even then they didn't have a much better situation. They would be kept in homes and watched to make sure they did t roam someplace harmful like Saturn.

On the rare occasions, if the human was thought possessed, he dead maybe inadvertently exercised before the living is killed, locked up, or worse, let to live unharmed with the knowledge the dead one they loved was forever trapped in exorcism.

In heartbreak, more often then not, the living would end their lives shortly after, only to suffer their own hell as a civil servant.

Beetlejuice never wanted that for Lydia. She had even asked about if there had been any relations between the living and the dead after their confessions to each other. Knowing fully well what could happen to her or him.

This didn't escape either of their thoughts as they now had this conversation.

"Lydia..."

"Beetlejuice don't, you know what I'll say."

He did but he had been thinking on this every since and what he would say in return.

"That's sort of why I suggested the movie..."

Lydia looked confused, "you picked ... Titanic... to talk about or relationship?"

He nodded before explaining.

"I want you to be like Rose, Lyds. Find someone, get married, have kids. All that breather shit."

She readied to protest, but he slapped his hand over her mouth.

"You be Rose and I swear I'll be Jack at the end. I'll show up all dressed and fancy for yah. I'll even bring you the freaking Heart of the Ocean for yah."

Lydia pulled his hand down from her mouth, "that things real?"

Beetlejuice snorted before they both broke out in laughter.

"I'm being all romantic and you ask that?" He sighed shaking his head in disbelief.

Lydia smiled, taking his face in her hands. Making him look at her.

"You think you'd still love me when I have a wrinkly old ass?"

"Do you really have to ask that babes?"

She smiled, letting go of him. Though it didn't reach her eyes like the ones he loved to see on her face.

"I live a normal life, like Rose, and die of old age... you promise to wait for me like Jack? See about having more then just a friendship? You promise?"

"Cross my heart hope to not be eaten by sandworms."

He watched her as she thought it over. Chewing at her lip as she went over his offer.

"I won't see you as much... ?"

"Well still talk and write, but... yeah..."

"Only way I can have a normal life... no ghosts?"

"You'll have the Maitlands still Babe." He snorted, trying to look like the fact they'd be the only ones to see her in person bothered him.

This didn't fool Lydia as she took his hand once again in hers.

"When do you feel you'll be ready for such a big step?"

He looked at her as if he was offended, "me?"

She simply kept smiling at him as he soon crumbled and sighed.

"I know, I'm the clingy one..."

She squeezed his hand reassuringly.

He closed his eyes, feeling the pain as he said it, "after we find you a guy to date... then I'll skunk out of your life."

"Beetlejuice..."

He looked to her sadly and what he say he thought his heart would break.

Lydia watched him, holding back sobs, as she pulled him into a hug.

In that moment he wanted to say screw it and tell her it was all just to see if she really loved him, but he couldn't do that to her. He loved her so much that he would keep the words locked away until the day she drew her last breath.

"You better keep your promise you big asshole."

They both couldn't help but laugh and hold each other close for what would be the last time in Lydia's life they would be that close.

How he would often after regret not kissing her in that moment. To feel her warm lips on his cold ones. Though he knew in the end it would have only made it all the harder for them both.

Lydia was picky and oh so stubborn. As was Beetlejuice as he judged each man Lydia even looked at in that stupid dating app.

In the end they both were surprised that it would be by random chance she would find the man she would end up marrying.

He wasn't anything special. Though he did surprisingly come from wealth, he never flaunted it and Lydia had actually met him while photographing a cemetery. He had been visiting family, placing fresh flowers and cleaning the stones when she had first spotted him. The perfect subject. The sound of the shutter of the vintage camera alerting him of her lurking.

He didn't find it strange she was there, only that she thought he was a worth subject to photograph.

He didn't think her strange when she said she believed in ghosts. He admitted he did as well. His grandmother, whom he had been visiting, had been a medium. His family thought her crazy, but he had always believed. He found it thrilling to meet another true medium and to say Lydia wasn't flattered and drawn to him for this would be a lie.

He supported her in her art, as well as her ghostly friendship with the Maitlands. Though he couldn't see them unless they allowed him, but even then he struggled to make them out at times. He was so normal that it impaired his sight of the dead. He admitted to Lydia how sad he had been when he first found out he did not have his grandmothers gift of sight. All the more why he was amazed by her and said how special and amazing she was.

And that is when Beetlejuice quietly disappeared.

He saw the look in Lydia's eyes and knew she had found the normal he had wished for her.

It pained him as he took his last look of her with another man. It was for the best. He continued to tell himself that for years to come.

The couples love grew, but Lydia never did feel the amount of love she felt for her best friend. It would always nag at her and one day her husband to be brought it up.

He wasn't angry, but concerned. He asked her calmly and well she told him.

She loved her best friend, a ghost, but they had agreed she must live a life worth living before they could have such a life as she was going to have with him soon.

Her husband to be was quiet, deathly so before he calmly replied that he wasn't surprised. He had noticed her talking to someone when they first started dating, though he couldn't see them, and then one day she no longer smiled as brightly has she once did with that phantom of a friend.

He accepted what she said and told her something Lydia didn't expect to hear.

His grandmother had made a similar agreement, but with her late boyfriend who had died serving before they could marry. She had went on to live her life, have children, and when the time grew closer to her end he came back to her.

He had caught her talking to the air of past times that she had shared with her lost love. He had asked her if it was grandfather, seeing he had passed when he was small, but she admitted the truth.

She had moved shortly after her husband's death. Telling him everything before she left. He hadn't been surprised, but told her he was happy to have loved her and shared their life together. Now dead, he too encouraged her to continue her life until it was time. He would not be heart broken, for he had the experience in life he wanted. Now he would experience death as he saw fit.

With advice from her of what she knew, he thanked her and wished her the best as she moved out and to a different home.

The home of her late love. He had been stationed there in death, what would have been their home in life. He had bought it for them, she had lived their in his absence. Marriage to take place the day he returned. But his death meant the home would only serve as a harsh truth to them both. In agreement she had left and rented the home out instead. Living her life with the living as he waited for her return.

Now years later she, in her failing health and old age, she was greeted by him with open arms. They would grow their love once more and when the day finally came, she joined him in their home.

Lydia was shocked to tears as her hope and guilt battled.

In the end it was her husband to be that eased her heart and pain.

He asked for a life together and a life only. In death he wished for her to find that happiness he saw when they first met.

She agreed with kisses and hugs. Promises of loving only him in life, until death do they part.

With marriage came a new home.

Lydia would still visit the Maitlands over the years, but the home her husband and she had choose would be for him in death alone.

As the years passed, Lydia lived her life to the fullest. Loved her husband with all heart living being. With time gave him a pair of children. One of each. They grew up and in time married and had their own children.

It appeared Lydia would take living to the fullest to heart.

She out lived her husband. Moving back in with the Maitlands shortly after. Though she promised to visit her late husband when she visited their children that lived there now.

Each generation from Lydia had the sight. Making the passing of a loved one much easier on them all.

They even enjoyed visiting aunt and uncle Maitland, along with the late Charles and Delia Deetzes when they came to visit Lydia.

Though one ghost continued to stay absent, even after Lydia's husbands death.

Beetlejuice never appeared, but would continue to write, send a small gift with or without reason.

After Lydia became single again, the gifts became more romantic in nature. Unusual jewelry, vintage photography items, books of horror stories, even a book full of Post Mortem Photos. Lydia found that fascinating, though times sad when it was children. An art rarely used anymore. When the poor could only get photos when someone had died. Eyes painted on the eyelids of the dead as they are propped up in some manner to look alive.

She ended up having it requested that when she did die they would proper her up as if she was taking photos still and hold her wake in that manner.

Those who could see the dead in her growing family thought it interesting and oh so her. The ones married in, not so much, but they wouldn't fight her on it. They grew to know her as the strange and unusual one in the family.

Then something seemed to change.

Lydia wasn't sure what it was for sure, but soon her parents and extended ones as well looked at her with dad eyes.

She didn't say anything if it until one day alone she received a letter from Beetlejuice.

'Dear Lydia,

Yeah you guessed it, serious time, I've been informed by the Maitlands and your parents of a change in aura around you.

Frankly I'm surprised not one but all could do that since it's takes practice for any ghost to do so...

Sorry back on topic.

I'm sure you already guessed what that means. Your life is drawing closer to its end. The aura that has always been so bright is beginning to fade. I've already told them and they'll probably be all sappy and clingy, but hey their your family.

It's up to you if you want to tell the breathers... though as I've seen how close you are to them all I'd suggest you do. They like to have the time then can, you know.

Just do me a favor and make sure you die in the house. I really don't want to have to pull strings with Juno if you died at a family's home while away.

Anyway...I... will I guess I'll talk to you again sooner then later...

Smell ya later Babe."

Lydia laughed through her tears.

She could tell how hard it had been for him to be the messenger of her approaching death. She wondered now how long he had been actually interested in her living family. Knowing him he would deny it but actually have been watching and getting to know each one of her blood decedents in his own way. She's have to ask them if they had seen a dead rotting zebra of a man stalking about and bothering them.

She placed the key on her nightstand before turning out the light. That would all be for tomorrow to worry on about.

She was too tired now. Barely nine at night and already she wanted to sleep. How much she had changed.

With a sigh, her eyes closed to the world, she slipped into a deep sleep.

She looked around her, she was in her room, it was midnight now though she didn't remember waking up.

She turned to look around her and found she was standing in the middle of her room, but in her bed she still lay sleeping.

"Oh one of those odd dreams." She chuckled, but jumped feeling a hand on her shoulder.

"'fraid not.."

She turned to face the person of the voice she had missed for so long. Bright smile and fresh tears as she saw Beetlejuice smiling back at her.

He looked just as she had last seen him, but oddly cleaner? He held one hand up from behind his back. At first she didn't take in what he was holding, but then as the light seemed to brighten a bit in the room with a snap of his fingers, she saw the glisten of the large gem.

"Is that...?"

"I promised you the Heart of the Ocean and I came through." He grinned motioning for her to turn around.

As she did she scoffed, "I'll look like the prettiest old lady ever." She snorted looking down at the gift, chuckling at the silliness.

Beetlejuice turned her around and chuckled with a shake of his head.

"You can't see it, but you don't look a day over the last time we were together."

She looked at him confused before looking back at her bed.

Realization finally sinking in.

"Defiantly not a dream?"

"Definitely not." He smiled warmly at her.

"Can you prove it?" Lydia eyed him questioningly.

"Of course. Shall this suffice?" He took her chin gently with one hand, pulling it up to allow access to her lips.

The kiss started out soft, but soon grew with the passion long left between them.

When they pulled away it was not for air neither need but the fit of giggles between them.

"I love you Lydia Deetzes."

"I love you Too Beetlejuice."

They were given time to themselves before dawn grew closer. The rest of Lydia's ghostly family appearing with a knock at her door.

Hugs and greetings and plans for celebration were being made before they finally agreed Lydia should phone someone about her body.

Those in the family with the gift, or believed were excited to hear Lydia was no longer fragile and slowed down by her growing age. The others wept as if they would never see her again.

Ridiculing then for being happy and going along with the late woman's crazy requests in her will.

Those that could see her or believed were told at the wake that an afterlife wedding would be held in the home after the burial. Only they were welcome to the celebration and as it turned out all of them had meet Beetlejuice. Even the unsighted had been able too.

All were excited and gave their blessings on the union to come.

Lydia didn't think she would have ever felt so happy. Not even in her life had she been this happy. All accepted her and would attend. Should would be surrounded by those she loved and they who loved her in return.

Lydia was already quite the unique ghost having changed her appearance upon death without even knowing.

And when the union was made finale with that single kiss, Beetlejuic and Lydia become visible to all in attendance. Untitled in death, sharing each other's juice.

Applause and shouts of joy rang out in their home. The newly weds now greeted by the three generations in line.

Lydia had managed to live to be 105 before she passed peacefully and unaware in her sleep.

She would watch her family grow along side her first love and even create a ghostly ones of their own in time.

In years to come they would joke of how Beetlejuice and Lydia had first met at their first failure of a marriage, only to finally tie the knot after all the amazing things Lydia had done in her life.

She was remembered for her art in photography. Her pieces taken of what she found beautiful and those she won awards for capturing moments in history.

In the end, she would give Beetlejuice the credit and day how much he sacrificed for her to live.

He was oddly humble each time, saying she was the real one that deserved such praises.

She never accepted that and only praised him more.

Their love was the strongest any had seen in the living or the dead.

They would haunt the Maitland house even after they and the late Deetzes could move out. Though they would still visit the happy couple, both resided in the Neitherworld in their dream homes.

As time passed, Beetlejuice asked if Lydia was ready. Her required haunt had ended and as the years passed her gift of sight in her family became all the more rare. Those with it became senile or had passed, now haunting their own homes.

So finally with the last of those that were living that Lydia and Beetlejuice had been seen by with the gift had passed, she made her decision.

"Beetlejuice... I think I'm ready to go... it's time we make a family of our own in the neitherworld."

"Your family has always been my Lyds."

"I love you Beej."

"I love you more Lyds."

A new adventure now awaited. One the neitherworld was not prepared for.


End file.
